Margarethenkirche (Niederkirchen)

The Evangelical Church in Niederkirchen

Another view of the church

Mask console

View inside the church

View of the organ prospect

The Margarethenkirche is a Protestant church in Niederkirchen , a district of the Saarland district town of St. Wendel . The church is the parish church of the Protestant parish Niederkirchen in Ostertal in the church district ( Dean's Office ) Kusel of the Evangelical Church of the Palatinate . The church is listed as an individual monument in the Saarland's list of monuments and is one of the best preserved Gothic village churches in Saarland.

history

The beginnings of the church go back to the early Middle Ages. In Niederkirchen, for example, a chapel with a cemetery is assumed as early as the 9th century . In 977 a church is mentioned that was maintained by the Disibodenberg monastery . The monastery owned the nave, while the chapter of the Mainz Cathedral owned the church's choir. A redesign of the church in the style of the early Gothic can be assumed for the 12th century.

The decline of the Disibodenberg monastery in the middle of the 13th century led to the transfer of the Niederkirchen possessions to the Wörschweiler monastery in Bliesgau . After the death of the Counts of Veldenz from the Geroldseck family , on whose territory Niederkirchen was situated, the place came to the dukes of Pfalz-Zweibrücken in 1444 .

At the beginning of the 16th century the church, which bore the patronage of Saint Margaret of Antioch , the patron saint of peasants and wet nurses , received its current, late-Gothic appearance.

After the Reformation was introduced in the Duchy of Pfalz-Zweibrücken in the 1530s, the church became Protestant. A few years later it was handed over to the church in Zweibrücken .

Architecture and equipment

The oldest parts of the church, which date from the 12th / 13th centuries. The basement of the tower and a barrel vaulted room on the north side, which today serves as a baptistery , belong to the 18th century . In the 16th century, the tower was increased by a protruding upper floor with a pointed helmet .

The nave is connected to the tower in the east , the southern outer wall of which is supported by strong buttresses that were added later . At the nave again a closed on three sides, dated with 1517's choir added, to the south, a sacristy is grown. The choir also has buttresses, but they are not as massive as those of the southern nave.

The interior of the church, which is divided into three naves , is characterized by a late Gothic reticulated vault . The grotesque masks that serve as console figures in some of the belt arches of the vaults are remarkable . The keystones of the vaults contain symbolic motifs. Underneath, for example, are the waistband shoe and a hand reaching out for a ring, the symbolic content of which is unclear. The latter motif can also be found on the outer wall of the choir.

In the southern nave, the late Gothic windows with their complete tracery have been preserved.

organ

By 2008, one was in the church organ of the company EF Walcker ( Ludwigsburg ), built 1897th In 1955 the Hugo Mayer company ( Heusweiler ) carried out an extensive redesign of the disposition and the prospectus in the neo-baroque style . In 1985, the Mayer company made a minor change in its disposition.

From 1897 to 1955 the organ pipes were in a neo-Gothic case made of pine wood, from 1955 in a free pipe prospect.

Today's organ was built in 2008 by the Yves Koenig company using the pipework from the Walcker and Mayer organs. The abrasive loading -instrument and has 16 (19) registers distributed in 2 manuals and pedal . The playing and stop action is mechanical. The disposition is as follows:

I main work C – f 3 1. Principal 8th' 2. Tube bare 8th' 3. Octave 4 ′ 4th Coupling flute 4 ′ 5. Octave 2 ′ 6th Cornet III 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ (from g) 7th Mixture IV 1'

II Positive C – f 3 8th. Dumped 8th' 9. Salicional 8th' 10. flute 4 ′ 11. Quint 3 ′ 12. Flageolet 2 ′ 13. Trumpet 8th'

Pedal C – d 1 14th Sub-bass 16 ′ 15th Octave bass 8 ′ Dumped 8 ′ (Ext. Subbass 16 ′) Octave 4 ′ (external octave bass 8 ′) 16. Trumpet 16 ′ Trumpet 8 ′ (Ext. Trombone 16 ′)

• Coupling , playing aids : Interchangeable manual coupling (either II / I or I / II), I / P, II / P

Bells

In the tower of the church there is a chime consisting of two bells . The two bronze bells , cast by master Otto von Speyer, date from 1414 and thus represent the oldest completely preserved duet bells in Saarland. From 1925 to 1942 there was a third bell in the tower, made by the Pfeifer bell foundry ( Kaiserslautern ) came from. It was taken down during the Second World War in 1942 and melted down for war purposes.

No.	volume	Weight (kg)	Diameter (cm)	inscription
1	as`	650	102.1	+ O REX GLORIE XPE VENI CVM PACE M.CCCC.XIIII +
2	b`	400	88	+ REX GLORIE XPE VENI CVM PACE +

garden

A "Biblical-Christian garden" was created around the church, in which one can explore over 200 plants from Biblical and Christian tradition as well as insights into biblical stories and the biblical land.
Biblical stories are related to plants at various stations. So serve z. B. Angel's trumpets, the bell-shaped flowers of which look similar to trumpets , as a reference to the Last Judgment or as a symbol of its announcement. Topics such as everyday life in ancient Israel , traditional agriculture , Christian festivals and the monastic area in the garden were also implemented.

literature

• Schaller, D .: The Protestant Church and Community of Niederkirchen in the Ostertal . Niederkirchen 1964.
• Klewitz, Martin: The churches of the parish Niederkirchen in the Ostertal . In: The tower cock . tape 11 , year 4/5. Speyer 1967, p. 1-12 .
• Jakobs, Ingrid: The Protestant parish church of Niederkirchen . In: Saarland monuments . No. 1 . "Die Mitte", Saarbrücken 1985.
• Ziskoven, Roman: The Protestant Church in Niederkirchen in the Ostertal . In: Westricher Heimatblätter . Vol. 35, 2004, p. 3-57 .
• Schreiber, Rupert: Niederkirchen, ev. Parish church . In: Preservation of monuments in Saarland. Annual report . 2010, p. 63-64 .

Web links

Commons : Margarethenkirche (Niederkirchen)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature on Margarethenkirche (Niederkirchen) in the Saarland bibliography
• Niederkirchen im Ostertal - Protestant Church - full bells (video with sound)
• Information on Ev. Church in Niederkirchen On: www.saarlandbilder.net

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Church district: Prot.Deanery Kusel On: www.evkirchepfalz.de, accessed on March 12, 2014
2. ↑ List of monuments of the Saarland, sub-monuments list of the district of St. Wendel (PDF; 2.5 MB), accessed on March 12, 2014
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Prot Margarethenkirche. In: www.radwegekirchen.de, accessed on 12 March 2014
4. ^ ^{A b c d e} Roman Ziskoven: The Evangelical Church in Niederkirchen in Ostertal, In: Westricher Heimatblätter. Volume 35. 2004, pp. 3-57.
5. ^ The organ of the Evangelical Margarethenkirche in Niederkirchen on: www.organindex.de, accessed on March 12, 2014
6. ↑ Description of Turbofreak89 on: www.youtube.com, accessed on March 13, 2014
7. ↑ Evelyn Schneider: Biblical plants beautify Kirchgarten . In: Saarbrücker Zeitung , September 28, 2012. Accessed on March 13, 2014.

Coordinates: 49 ° 28 ′ 2.3 ″  N , 7 ° 15 ′ 1.3 ″  E